Stand your ground: Bulgaria demands a referendum on abandoning the national currency

The Bulgarian opposition Vozrozhdenie party has collected 47 of the 48 signatures required by parliamentarians to hold a referendum on switching to the euro. This was stated to Izvestia by the MEP from this party, Rada Laikova. This will be the second attempt to stop Bulgaria's entry into the eurozone, the first one was rejected by parliament in 2023. In addition to this country, the Czech Republic has a negative attitude towards the transition to the euro, while Hungary and Poland are postponing such a prospect. What are the reasons for dissatisfaction with the common currency and which other countries are against the euro — in the Izvestia article.

Bulgarians are against switching to the euro

The Renaissance party has collected 47 of the 48 necessary signatures to hold a referendum on Bulgaria's transition to the euro. This was stated to Izvestia by a member of the European Parliament from this party, Rada Laikova. The opposition is currently working to finalize the launch of the referendum process, and it also intends to bring this issue to the EP for discussion.

— The ruling parties in Bulgaria are preventing the referendum because they are afraid of its result — a decisive rejection of the euro. Polls show that about 80% of Bulgarians want to keep lev. Only a small elite, not ordinary citizens, will benefit from the introduction of the euro, and people understand this. The introduction of the euro now would be like boarding the Titanic after it has already collided with an iceberg," Laikova told Izvestia.

Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007 along with Romania, but both countries have not joined the eurozone. To switch to the euro, a country must meet the Maastricht Criteria of 1992, which set the maximum size of the budget deficit, public debt and other macroeconomic parameters. Sofia has fulfilled four out of five criteria, according to the ECB report in the summer of 2024.

At the same time, the Bulgarian parliament passed a law on the transition to the euro, which was supposed to enter into force on January 1, 2025. However, due to high inflation, the government decided to postpone the transition to 2026 and asked the European Commission and the ECB to provide a report on whether Bulgaria is ready, from their point of view, to fully switch to the euro.

— It is the Bulgarian government that insists on switching to the euro, but with the strong support of the EU. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and other EU officials have a vested interest in supporting Bulgaria's leadership, which was evident during the country's past election campaigns, Rada Laikova said.

It is important that there is no public consensus on this issue in Bulgaria. In 2023, the opposition Vozrozhdenie party collected almost 600,000 signatures to hold a referendum on switching to the euro. However, the parliament rejected this initiative, 98 deputies out of 240 opposed it. The Constitutional Court also did not support this claim.

The new initiative should also be considered by parliament — it should do so within three months from the moment when 48 deputies support the application for a referendum. If the parliament approves the proposal, the Bulgarian president will set a date for the vote. For the proposal to pass, the support of more than half of those who took part in the voting is required. The initiator of the referendum, the Vozrozhdenie Party, currently holds 35 seats out of 240, but the government also relies on a minority of 107 votes. Therefore, the success of the proposal depends on whether Vozrozhdenie is able to reach an agreement with the other parties.

Along with the attempt to achieve a plebiscite, the opposition launched mass actions, the participants of which demand to preserve the Bulgarian currency — lev. The leader of the Renaissance party, Kostadin Kostadinov, said that the rallies held on February 22 were just the beginning. According to a February opinion poll, about 57% of Bulgarians were opposed to joining the eurozone.

Which EU countries refuse to change their currency

The experience of other not-so-rich countries (when compared with EU leaders), such as Slovakia, Croatia and Latvia, shows that switching to the euro causes price increases and greater dependence on economic fluctuations in other European countries. In addition, seven parliamentary elections have already been held in Bulgaria since 2021, so the actions of politicians who came to power with minimal turnout are unacceptable to the population. Moreover, Brussels itself has not yet made a final decision on Bulgaria, as it understands the risks of switching to the euro for one of the poorest EU countries, said Vadim Trukhachev, associate professor at the Russian State University of Economics.

Bulgaria's case is by no means unique: of the 27 EU states, only 20 have switched to the euro. Hungary, Denmark, Poland, Romania, Sweden and the Czech Republic do not use a common currency. At the same time, each country had its own reasons.

For example, Denmark, when signing the Maastricht Treaty, was able to negotiate a number of concessions for itself, while retaining the national currency. In the future, the issue of joining the eurozone was raised in the country, but it never came to a referendum. In Sweden, this issue was put to a national vote in 2003, when the majority of citizens opposed the transition to the euro.

The Czech Republic is economically ready to join the eurozone, but after the outbreak of the European debt crisis in 2009, Prague is skeptical about this initiative. The current government of Petr Fiala has decided to postpone the resolution of this issue until the parliamentary elections, which are scheduled for October 2025. Romania is not switching to the euro due to non-compliance with the required criteria in the economy, the authorities hope to solve this problem by 2029.

Hungary and Poland also retained their national currencies, but rather for political reasons. Both countries have rather complicated relations with Brussels, which has repeatedly resorted to blocking funds allocated to Warsaw and Budapest from European funds. Therefore, abandoning the national currency may make them even more dependent on the decisions of European institutions.

It is important that there are political forces in the eurozone member states that demand the return of the national currency. For example, in Germany, the AfD party proposed holding a referendum on Berlin's membership in the EU and the eurozone. The issue of abandoning the euro in 2018 was raised by the League party in Italy. During the debt crisis, a return to the drachma was actively discussed in Greece, and in 2015, the government of Alexis Tsipras put to a referendum the terms of financial assistance proposed by the ECB and the IMF. Despite the fact that the voters rejected them, Athens nevertheless agreed to an agreement with creditors.

Of those countries that are not going to switch to the euro, Denmark takes the most categorical position. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban shares a similar opinion, but other Hungarian parties have a different position on replacing the forint with the euro. In Poland and the Czech Republic, joining the eurozone is causing great controversy. The government of Donald Tusk is not against it, but the EU itself is not sure that it is worth accepting such a large country as Poland into the eurozone, Vadim Trukhachev summed up.